


The Four Candle Lights of Steve Roger's Birthday.

by DitescoMori



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1910328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DitescoMori/pseuds/DitescoMori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gives him a thousand lights and promises that one day, he will give him a gift for every one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Four Candle Lights of Steve Roger's Birthday.

When Steve turns seven, he doesn’t choose to give him seven candles on a cake, he chooses to give him thousands.

The sky implodes with the wealth of a thousand colors, the smell of gunpowder striding the heavens and the darkness, leaving to linger an impenetrable argent halo. The chorus in unison, of thousand different decibels breaking into a song at the same time are all the birthday songs he wishes to give him. They have left behind the years they could impersonate one another, for Steve’s hair, just like everything he does and embodies, has become fairer than Bucky’s. He sees and lives the parade through the eyes of the boy who rests on his shoulders, a weight light as a plume, but with a spirit of iron.

There is no money for the cake and ice-cream he promised, but instead, he gives him a thousand lights and promises that one day, he will give him a gift for every one of them.

It is cold and late by the time they reach the barracks, red staining the otherwise pristine green of his uniform. Despair and abandon are the only crutches that keep him on his feet as he allows all of his muscles to relax for a moment. He believed he knew cold; the cold back home, the one that made him curl up by the fireplace along with Steve, and if the job at the docks had been fruitful that day, he would lay claim to the spoils with a cup of hot chocolate. His organism is not prepared to sustain this, but the cold is a far better thing to focus on in the night you have taken a man’s life for the first time. The youth’s attention is rapt in the flames as they dance and crackle, and he remembers. Realizing the date so late brings an air of misery about him. Still, he struggles to abandon the small place where the soldiers rest and he shoots a flare. The color is overwhelming, as the delicate arch of smoke and sound makes the night reverberate within its core. He stares until the last light extinguishes.

With a deign of pain, James contemplates how yet another has passed without being able to meet all the promises he has made to Steve.

There is nothing but cold in Vladivostok. It matters little that summer’s overture has left the streets dowsed in late showers. The success of the mission has all men assembled by the table, alcohol wasted with the same celerity the stories found vocalization. They leave him out. The totem, the soldier, the effigy who they have been taught to treat like a machine and never a human being. The men about him celebrate a victory, but still, the Winter Soldier is restless. They don’t invite him to drink, as it would be a direct affront to their handler’s orders. He knows he is missing something, something that eludes the otherwise impeccable execution of the mission and blotches his memory with unforgiving resilience.

It is quiet and dark by the time they leave the bar. The only light that breaks the darkness is the candle the Winter Soldier leaves ignited on their former table. The Soldier cannot shake off the feeling that there is something he has lost.

There is a sea of people, but he pays no mind to the feeling of their elbows in his ribs. Tonight, he wears anonymity in the guise of a common bystander, no eyes sparing a second glance in his direction; people, after all know better than fearing their own shadow. Everything is strident and colorful about him, and his mind cannot make peace out of the boisterous cheer. His eyes never look up, choosing to obviate the reminder of blue, red and white that is imprinted in the back of his mind, the flesh of his corneas, the colors of the man, the mission, the mistake, the failure. Each firework cracks the heavens and leaves him deaf afterwards, nothing but the noise and an echo all but forgotten.

By the time blue eyes finally gather from the floor, he sees him. Across the street. Staring at him. Unmoving. Static. He wonders if it is his memory once more, playing trick on him. But there is no blood on his face, not like he remembers him the last time he saw him in the hospital. Slowly breathing, decadent and dying.

He holds his thumb in front of his face, indicating the man to look up as he does. The celestial dome flares up with color, as he allows the look of bliss to take over his broken features. There is recognition there, a docile and mellow smile and the colors above setting fire to his blue eyes.

When Steve looks back down, Bucky is gone. His eyes return to the fireworks, miserably wondering how no matter how many lights the sky is ignited with, his one true wish will never come true.


End file.
